The Senate’s bipartisan border security and foreign aid package announced Sunday allocates millions of dollars to deploy innovative technologies along the U.S.-Mexico border, including expanded autonomous systems and new artificial intelligence capabilities. It is planned that
The 370-page, $118 billion proposal also includes additional funding for Ukraine and Israel to strengthen asylum procedures, speed up deportations and allow migrants to cross the southern border if they exceed certain thresholds. It is subject to closure.
A brief on the bill’s border security elements emphasizes the restrictions it imposes on illegal immigration, but notes that the bill’s new authority is “a tool in the border security toolbox of any government with a desire to secure its borders.” “We’re bringing powerful new tools to the table,” he said more broadly.
James Lankford (R-Okla.), the bipartisan bill’s chief negotiator, said in a statement that the proposal would “build a wall, improve technology at the border, and increase detention beds, staff, and deportation flights. “This will provide additional funds.”
The bill provides $758.5 million to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for procurement, construction, and improvements, with more than half of that funding, $424.5 million, for “Non-Intrusive Inspection Technology Acquisition and Deployment.” ” will be assigned.
These non-intrusive tools will be purchased through an open competition focused on acquiring “innovative technologies that improve performance, including through the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities,” the text states.
An additional $260 million will be allocated to CBP to be used for border security technology, and the remaining $74 million will be set aside for “aviation asset acquisition and deployment.”
The bulk of the technology-focused border security funding ($170 million) will go toward deploying autonomous surveillance tower systems “in locations not currently covered by such systems or technologies.” is.
The bill defines these autonomous surveillance towers as “integrated software and/or hardware systems that utilize sensors, on-board computing, and artificial intelligence to identify items of interest that would normally be manually identified by personnel.” ” is defined.
Additional funding will also be allocated to mobile surveillance capabilities, including “mobile video surveillance systems, replacement of outdated mobile surveillance equipment, anti-UAS, and small unmanned aircraft systems.”
The bill specifies that the appropriated funds “shall not be used for the procurement or deployment of non-autonomous border security technology.”
The Senate is expected to take its first vote on the bill by Wednesday this week, but the bill’s prospects in the House already look bleak. In a statement Monday from House Republican leadership, Republican leaders said that “considering this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time” and that the bill was “dead on arrival in the House.” .